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ZAATARI REFUGEE CAMP, JORDAN—During his final two weeks in Syria, Maher saw Syrian soldiers gouge out the eyes and cut off the ears from the bodies of civilians.

The 25-year-old, a dog handler, watched as soldiers stripped naked a group of men in his hometown of Jdaideh in southern Syria before the men were run over and killed by a column of tanks.

Maher stared, speechless with horror, as other soldiers cut off the head of a local imam whose crime had been to suggest that civilians killed during the Syrian civil war were martyrs.

“I’m telling you, what you see and hear about in the West is only a fragment of what is happening,” Maher said, sitting cross-legged in his tent, next to his new wife, Asma. “I’m happy to be here. I’m happy Jordan accepted refugees like us.”

Surviving Syria is perhaps the only way anyone could be pleased to be a resident of the sprawling Zaatari refugee camp, about 90 minutes into the desert northeast of Amman. They had to truck in tons of gravel to make the roads into the camp, which opened a week and a half ago and now houses 3,814 Syrians.

An estimated 100,000 Syrian refugees are registered throughout Jordan. Many are staying in large cities like Amman with their relatives and friends. Others are staying at transition camps in cities and towns along the Syria-Jordan border. There, they are angry over plans to move them to Zaatari.

But as Syria descends further into violence, Maher, Asma and others at Zaatari will surely have more company soon.

Syria’s President Bashar Assad has ordered his army to maintain control of the country at all costs and fighting has become fiercer by the day. Rebels are using captured tanks against the Syrian military, which has countered with attack helicopters and fighter jets.

On Wednesday, Amnesty International said both sides fighting in Syria’s most populous city, Aleppo, might be held criminally accountable for their failure to protect civilians.

Former United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan last week quit his job as peace envoy in Syria, calling his task “Mission: Impossible.”

“It’s like Bosnia, where we wake up two years too late and so many people have been murdered and raped and we say, ‘What should we do?’ ” said Samir Barhoum, editor of The Jordan Times, an English daily newspaper. “It’s the same thing. People are being massacred right now.”

The camp is surrounded by fences and razor wire. Soldiers patrol the camp, although few seem to carry weapons, and refugees are not permitted to leave.

Analysts have suggested that the government is worried Al Qaeda or other extremist groups will try to recruit from refugee camps like Zaatari, so access is tightly controlled.

By midmorning, the temperature here eclipses 40 C and climbs higher in the afternoon. By evening, when many of the camp’s occupants can finally eat and drink after fasting for the day — it’s Ramadan, the holiest month of the Muslim calendar — the drinking water in large storage containers is nearly boiling.

Every few minutes, funnel clouds of sand whip through the camp, throwing garbage, clothing, and on Wednesday, even a pegged-down tent, high into the air.

Everyone is caked in dust and fights routinely break out among the refugees. As volunteers handed out date-filled cookies, a woman and teenage boy started fighting over a box, pushing and shouting before the boy ran away with the prize.

In a small clinic located across a gravel road from the rows of dirt-encrusted tents, a World Health Organization doctor said he is treating 250 patients a day, most complaining of respiratory problems.

“There should be a lot more coming in,” he said. “Most people don’t know the clinic is even here.”

Each evening, wild-eyed newcomers arrive at the camp, accompanied by the Jordanian soldiers who met them at the border.

Most carry nothing, because even a suitcase might alert Syrian soldiers that they’re fleeing, and that could mean an automatic death sentence.

The newcomers are photographed in the registration tent, and given a ration card and supplies that include a hygiene kit, two mattresses, a blanket, and tin pots and pans and other cooking supplies.

Some refugees have complained about snakes and scorpions, which are common in Jordan.

Aoife McDonnell, an official with the United Nations refugee agency, said the camp’s remote location was chosen by the Jordanian government.

“It was the best of a bad lot,” she said. “The government could obtain it quickly because it owned the land, there is a water supply close by and also an electricity line. And there’s enough open space that it can handle it if we need to expand to accommodate 100,000 people.”

Jordan is an unusual Middle Eastern country. It hasn’t been blessed with rich oil deposits, and like many of its neighbours, it is grappling with a financial crisis.

“We’re hoping foreign donors help pay for caravans (trailers)(trailers) or more permanent structures,” McDonnell said. “We know the tents are not equipped to handle the Jordanian desert. It’s going to get even worse in the winter.”

“I tell him to be patient, that God will look after us,” Zuri said. “I tell him to be respectful of the Jordanians because they are our hosts.”

Zuri and his family had lost everything. They had spent their last 3,000 Syrian pounds ($45) on cigarettes and transportation to flee their country, but Zuri was still insisting on good manners from his children.

Abdul Karim, wearing a red baseball hat and dirty yellow T-shirt, leaned forward from the entrance of his three-metre-by-four-metre tent and offered a juice box.

His father nodded with approval.

Not far from the Zuri family, Adel Ghozlan was finding it more difficult to stay positive.

His wife Khansa Katlish was trying to comfort their 10-month-old, Abdullah, as their five other children watched. The baby had severe diarrhea and a fever.

“And I’m four months pregnant,” Katlish said, glancing around her spartan temporary home. “I wish it wasn’t so. I wish we never left Syria.”

Ghozlan, a jack-of-all-trades who became an expert at repairing water tanks that were hit by Syrian shelling, said his family had no choice. His brother had joined the Free Syrian Army, so the whole family was at risk.

“Maybe I’ll be able to be a refugee in Canada,” said Ghozlan, 42. “Don’t be afraid by my beard. I’m not Al Qaeda. I just can’t find any shaving cream in here.”

In tent No. 620, Maher, who trained dogs to detect illegal drugs when he was a Syrian soldier, recalled the chaos and unlikely joy of the past few weeks.

Maher was married on July 24, only a few days before he was forced to flee Syria with his bride.

Maher said he knew for years that he would marry Asma, his first cousin. “We are compatible,” he said with a grin, wearing a sweat-stained black muscle shirt and brown pants. “We both have lost both our parents and we’re sympathetic to each other’s situation. And I love her.”

Four weeks ago, Maher received permission from Asma’s brother to marry her. On their wedding day, the couple had barely exchanged their vows when the Syrian army began shelling.

As buildings collapsed, blanketing the streets in rubble and flaming timber, 25 families poured into Maher’s home, which was untouched amid the carnage.

Yet it wasn’t long before Syrian soldiers began pounding on Maher’s door. When he opened it, Maher was smacked in the face with a crowbar, tied up, and beaten for two hours.

“The soldiers threw petrol on me and said they were going to light me on fire,” said Maher, who asked that his family name not be used because his relatives are still in Syria. “They said I was a traitor and asked why I opposed the Syrian system. I could only answer that I didn’t.”

The soldiers didn’t believe Maher, largely because his younger brother Suhail had joined the rebels 18 months earlier. In early July, soldiers arrested Maher’s other brother Zahir, hanged him on a fence and shot him in the neck, killing him.

While the soldiers took a break from beating Maher, one soldier untied him.

“I ran to a nearby farmyard and used a shovel to dig in the dirt,” he said. “I hid there in the ground for six hours. I had a small rubber hose to breath.”

The soldiers left the area and Maher returned home.

“I didn’t leave because I still have sisters, and other family there and I had a good career there,” he said.

But for several days, Syrian soldiers seemed to become more emboldened.

“I saw them take a group of men and cut off their ears and then they started plucking out their eyes,” Maher said. “It was horrible.

“After they killed those men, another day they started shooting at houses with bazookas.”

Maher’s breaking point was when his local imam was beheaded.

“The security came and just cut off his head, Shia style, back to front like a sheep,” he said.

Maher and Asma fled to his sister Samia’s house and then hired a taxi to take them all to the Jordanian border.

In the middle of Maher’s tale, his friend Tariq interrupted.

“Do you see any dogs, cats or birds here in this camp?” Tariq said. “No, they are too smart to come here. The heat is unbearable. We will be boiled eggs in a month.”

Maher waved at him to be quiet.

“Finally, we are away from the murder,” Maher said. “We can sleep. We aren’t waiting for death every minute.”

A visitor asks Maher for permission to take a photo of him with his new bride.

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